Help with translation please

[Ron M]

Hello to you all, hoping for some help with this katana mei. Thank you in advance for any help and direction.

Regards

Ron

[Bugyotsuji]

Not seen this before, but common sense leads me to think: ‘contains real steel/iron.’

真金入

magane iri

 

(Always ready to be educated!)

[Ron M]

Do you think this number 211659 coincides with this hotstamp? Seems so, for the type of steel used on mine

[Matsunoki]

See page 35 of Bruce’s superb compilation of known stamps

 

[Ron M]

Awesome thanks so much, you guys are awesome!

[Ron M]

I suppose the next question is are these considered nihonto in that they are forged? Thanks for the replies so far, my friends 

[Bruce Pennington]

Discussion in the past have generally agreed that the "genuine core steel" meant tamahagane.  You can see the kobuse method in this chart:

 

But I defer to the nihonto guys as to whether this complies with the traditionally made criteria.

[Bruce Pennington]

Ron,

Could you do me a favor and give me a shot of the full nakago, showing the smith, and one of the other side, whether dated or not?

[Bugyotsuji]

Just to clarify what puzzled me originally is that ‘Shingane’ for the meaning of ‘core’ is usually written with 鉄 ‘iron’ and a kanji using 心 ‘heart’, i.e. either 芯鉄 or 心鉄.

 

In this case both kanji in the cartouche are different.

[ROKUJURO]

Hi Piers,

it is indeed SHINGANE (spelled wrongly in the above chart) or SHINTETSU, and - to answer Bruce's question - in traditionally made swords, the whole blade is made of TAMAHAGANE, but with differing carbon content in the composite construction. The core steel has low carbon content, and in most cases it is not hardenable. The principle of sandwich construction implies that the physical properties of the core material are of lesser importance, compared with those of the tensile and the compressive faces. 

To explain: TAMAHAGANE is a RAW iron/steel material of non-defined composition. It cannot be used in this raw state and has to be refined to be usable. After processing, it can be separated by the smith into different sorts of steel, depending on carbon content.

Processing TAMAHAGANE means hammering and stretching the steel out, then folding (mostly in half) and fire-welding it. In the end, this results in a more homogeneous steel, depending on the number of folds/weldings. However, the steel loses carbon each time it is exposed to high heat, so the number of foldings decides about the properties. Usually, it is said that SHINTETSU (which has a low carbon content from the start) is folded 8 to 10 times, while HAGANE (starting with more than 1% of carbon) is folded about 12 to max. 15 times for a very fine-grain, homogeneous steel, containing about 0.6 to 0.7% of carbon in the cutting edge of a finished sword blade. KAWAGANE lies in between. 

[Bugyotsuji]

Jean, which above chart is spelled wrongly?

(I was referring to the stamp itself which says 眞金入)

 

Did they deliberately chose different kanji for the same sound, in order to emphasize something slightly different, perhaps a process that was new at the time?

[Ron M]

Bruce, here are the nakago pics. Unfortunately it has no other marks nor a mei, and no hint of any other stamps regardless of appearance.
 Thank you for your time and effort toward creating and keeping files for these items.

 Regards and respect 

 Ron

[ROKUJURO]

Piers,

Bruce was kind enough to post the KITAE/lamination chart above, and in the upper line, it says Shigane instead of SHINGANE.

As far as the Japanese terms are concerned, I am not of much help. I only know that SHINGANE and SHINTETSU are used for the same feature, but are obviouisly pronounced differently.

[Ron M]

This came in a civilian koshirae as well. 
 Thanks for everyone’s input.

[Bruce Pennington]

12 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

- in traditionally made swords,

Thanks Jean Collin!  So, am I hearing correctly that this blade was traditionally made?

[Bruce Pennington]

Ron,

For FYI sake, I have several blades on file with this stamp, and yours is the first I've seen without a signature.  The only smiths I've recorded that used the stamp were:

Masafusa - 12 blades

Kaneshige - 3 blades

Kunimishi - 1 blade

Yukimune - 1 blade

 

@mecox might be able to give some insight on what forge these guys were working for, which might give you some idea of the background on your blade.

[ROKUJURO]

Bruce,

I haven't even seen pictures of the blade, so I cannot comment on authenticity, but if the blade had HADA and a nice HAMON (produced by quenching in water), I believe it was traditionally made. At least, the NAKAGO is not sloppily made in my opinion.

Puzzling to me are the tempering colours on the NAKAGO which has obviously been exposed to heat AFTER making the YASURI ME. This is unusual and lets be believe the hot stamps had been applied after the blade was finished. These colours are not very durable and do not withstand friction or rubbing.

[Ron M]

Hi guys thank you again, here are some hamon pics. Can’t see the much as it’s out of polish. Thanks

[ROKUJURO]

What can be seen does not look oil-hardened to me. On the other hand, if traditionally forged and heat-treated accordingly, you would expect NIE and/or NIOI.

As Ron states correctly above, the polish isn't great, and the traces of abuse in the MONO UCHI will require some TOGISHI efforts to make them disappear.